


Changes and Classes

by aisydays



Category: Flintlocks & Fireballs (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Class Swap, Bard!Corzin, Gen, Pre-Canon, Ranger!Scamp, Sorcerer!Celestia, spoilers for character backstories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:28:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28509678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aisydays/pseuds/aisydays
Summary: A bard, a sorcerer, and a ranger walk into a tavern.No, not like that.(A class swap au where everything is mostly the same, except Corzin sings more, Celestia's magic is even more unpredictable, and Scamp really knows their way around town)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	Changes and Classes

**Author's Note:**

> This was a Long time coming, but I have finally finished it! Should I have had someone beta read? Should I maybe have relistened to the first episode given it's been nearly a year? Perhaps. 
> 
> Fair warning, there are spoilers for Corzin and Celestia's backstories, so be aware if you're early on in the show. I also changed canon slightly in that the Kraken also attacked Scarroll's Cove as well as Barnacle Point, so if this breaks anything in canon that I am not aware of (I'm on episode 94, so anything past there is a Mystery to me), my apologies!

In the alleys of Scarroll’s Cove, a small figure slipped through the shadows. The port town was by no means sprawling or complex, but it had enough alleys and nooks that you could slip through almost undetected, provided you knew your way well enough. And Scamp, who had grown up in the city – _with_ the city, as it recovered from the brutal attack almost ten years previously by a force of nature known only as the Kraken – knew their way.

They darted between houses and through alleys, their heavy cloak flapping out behind them like the wings of a bat. At this point, what must have looked to outsider like a random scramble, twisting and turning and doubling back, was nothing more than muscle memory. It was a route Scamp was familiar with, one they had traced so many times that they often walked it even in their dreams. The repetitive motions of their hooves clattering on the cobbles faded into the back of their mind as they found themself lost in thought.

Something proper weird was happening to them. Scamp had barely noticed it at first, and even when they had, it had been chalked up to coincidence. The way they could somehow sense people from miles away, the way their awareness would narrow down when they were attacked. They were by no means the only orphan growing up on Scarroll’s streets, picking up odd jobs and scraping together enough to eat, but no one else _knew_ the place like Scamp did. No one else had the same instincts; for survival, for direction, or for something else, something deeper and almost… magical. There were some things Scamp had always been able to do, like blow a gust of wind around a room or make their voice boom out at a volume that small urchins weren’t usually capable of, but lately there had been some other… weird stuff.

It had been odd enough when their one-sided conversation with a rat in the street suddenly and temporarily became considerably less one sided, although Geoffrey had turned out to be pleasant enough company. But when faced with a group of attackers, hell bent on retrieving whatever it was Scamp had nicked from their boss this time, the hail of thorns that accompanied the small rock they’d thrown in a panic was even stranger.

As the warm and welcoming light of the Bosun’s Arms came into view, Scamp ducked into a nearby shadow, quickly pulling their beard into place. With any luck they’d be safe in here, at least for a while. And maybe, just maybe, they would meet someone with some answers.

****

For the most part, during his early days on The Regret, Corzin Horhace kept his head down. He learnt fairly early on that those who went on rants about murdering the Kraken weren’t exactly looked on with sympathy. Better then to keep quiet, keep working, and slowly but surely raise the funds he needed for his revenge. If he just worked hard, sent what he could back to Molly and his son and kept the rest to the side, then one day he would be the captain of his own fleet, sailing out to finally destroy the thing that took his town, took his brother. But all that would be kept quiet, for now.

That being said, not everything could be kept quiet. Corzin had a habit, one he’d picked up from a young age while watching the sailors who docked at Barnacle Point and the workers in the fields with his parents. It was very rare for Corzin not to be humming something under his breath, whether that be a work song or a shanty. Later, when he left his town behind in ruins, they became a way to keep his hometown’s memory alive. Although the notes brought a tightness to his throat and tears to the corners of his eyes, Corzin kept singing.

It wasn’t until one fateful night when his singing became something more. He was singing, a desperate, rushed rendition of a shanty, though which one he could not have said. The frantic words spilling from his lips as he worked, trying so hard to keep his crewmate alive, hung in the air. At first, this was merely metaphorical but as the song continued, the notes seemed to form in front of him. Bright wisps of smoke flowed through the air, coalescing and forming into a shape. A fish darted through the air as if it was swimming through reeds. Corzin could do nothing but stare as the man below him gasped for breath, straining through shattered lungs as the wheezes grew weaker and weaker. As his breaths faded, however, the life draining from his eyes despite all Corzin’s efforts, the fish darted forward and… into the sailor’s chest. The spirit swam through him, disappearing under the skin and then, as the man sat up with a shuddering breath, billowed out of his mouth like smoke from a pipe.

Corzin had no idea what was happening – how this spirit had appeared, how the injured man below him was breathing evenly now his skin was knitting together before his very eyes. All he could do was keeping singing, under his breath, the rhythm of the shanty matching the slowly stabilising breaths.

***

In the Underdark, magic was simple. If one was blessed with the Sight, could see the spirits that inhabited a world somewhere between our own and that of the gods, then they were clearly marked for religious service. Personal ideas about faith were dismissed and ignored – those who resisted soon saw the error of their ways after all, and it was an honour to serve as a priestess or cleric.

Magic was simple, straight-forward and, above all, uniform. Clerical magic came from the gods and was used for the good of the drow. That was all.

There was one drow. however, whose magic was anything but. She tried to hide it, in the beginning, terrified of what it might mean. She could see the spirits, that was one thing, but the magic that grew within her, that exploded out unpredictably, was nothing like what she’d seen practised in the temple. Clerics didn’t randomly turn invisible, or blue, or grow two inches in a matter of seconds. Their magic was a gift, bestowed upon them by the gods and flowing through their bodies, their spirits. It wasn’t a force inside them, growing in power and exploding out at random moments. It was terrifying and completely unheard of.

And she secretly loved it.

As the drow grew, she began to embrace the things that made her different, the little rebellions she committed every day, hidden away beneath a façade that no one would see beneath. She met a slave who changed her life, feel deeply and madly in love over such a short time – almost a blink of a drow’s eye. And she planned, planned a way to escape to the service and finally be free.

The plan went awry of course, as plans very often do. The drow made her way alone, escaping with nothing more than the clothes on her back and a sackful of her family’s jewels, snipped off dresses and prised out of jewellery so as to make them unrecognisable. These she sold almost immediately, traded in for the most outlandish outfits, the loudest instruments. All bar one, a small but perfectly formed diamond that the newly christened Celestia Stardust slipped into her pocket. She didn’t know why it called to her, but as she stepped into the Bosun’s Arms that fateful evening, her hand drifted to it subconsciously.

**Author's Note:**

> Fair seas, and natural twenties


End file.
